Two of four SCO licensees deny their purchase

Two of the four companies that SCO has publicly named as having bought a licence from it to use Linux, have denied doing anything of the sort.

Both Computer Associates and Leggett & Platt have been held up by SCO as purchasing a $699 (Â£384) licence to cover the alleged SCO copyrights in the
open-source operating system. But both have publicly stated that they have done no such thing.

The chief architect of CA's Linux Technology Group, Sam Greenblatt, admitted the company had struck a deal with an investor in SCO over UnixWare
licences and said that for each UnixWare licence bought, it was indemnified against a Linux box but he denied outright that the company had bought a
licence specifically dealing with Linux.

Leggett & Platt was even clearer. "I have now talked to our people who handle our Linux systems and, at least at a corporate level, we have not bought
such a licence from SCO Group," said the company's VP of human resources, John Hale. "To their knowledge they would not have an interest in doing so."